


New Orleans

by Dominatrix



Category: Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: A little fluffy, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 07:17:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/783318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dominatrix/pseuds/Dominatrix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What if Caroline had accepted Klaus' offer to come to New Orleans?</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Orleans

Klaus doesn’t hold out too much hope when he dials her number. He doesn’t even know why he does it; but then he also does because she is everything he thinks about but doesn’t want to think about at the same time. It is very confusing.

When she picks up the phone her voice is cool and distant and he’s surprised that she actually picked up the phone when she saw his number. Their relation is a little…difficult since he sent Tyler to exile.

He estimates her to refuse his offer, he even thinks about which insult she will throw at his head now. To his surprise, she does something else. There is a moment of silence. Then he hears her sigh, and he can’t stop the thought that he would like to hear her sigh while she is in his arms.

“Alright. I’ll be there. You pay the flight.”

She doesn’t say goodbye or anything, there’s just a click in the line and she’s gone. Klaus stares at his phone in disbelief. It had felt not real enough to be a hallucination, but he can’t believe it was real, either. He calls her again, and she answers her phone after a single ring.

“What?”

“Are you really coming?” he asks and he wants to punch himself in the face because he is so dumb to ask her that. Now she will think about what a horrible mistake she has made and it will all go to waste.

“Don’t annoy me. I’ve never been to New Orleans. I’ll be there in three hours.” Again she ends the call without waiting for him to say anything. Which is good, because Klaus is speechless.

 

When he comes to pick her up at the airport she looks just as stunning as she always does: A light, beautiful dress that flutters around her thighs, she wears soft, brown boots which only Caroline could wear with such elegance, her jeans jacket pulled close around her slim body.

“You could have told me it’s cold in New Orleans” she mutters when she approaches him, but there’s a hint of a smile on her lips when she sees him. He doesn’t dare to tell her that vampires don’t feel the cold; maybe she’s still human enough to know she should feel cold. She refuses the arm he’s offering her, and he can’t say that he’s really surprised by that.

He shows her the New Orleans he had always loved the most: The way the city changes when the night falls, the way every inch of the city seems to be filled with music, may it be the faint sound of a jazz bar in someone’s cellar, or the heartbreaking melody of a violin that leaves a bittersweet taste in your mouth when it has vanished.

As he has estimated, she starts to be the city: She laughs, she talks about things that don’t actually matter but are important because he loves to hear her speak, loves how she needs her hands to talk and how she tugs his shirt when she wants him to look at something.

They don’t kiss each other this evening, let alone anything more. But there are touches. She hits him on the forearm when he says something about contemporary art she doesn’t agree about. Her eyes and the smile on her lips scream that she does it only to tease him. Klaus carefully takes her hand when they are almost losing each other in the crowd. For a short moment she seems to freeze but then replies his touch by softly squeezing his hand.

While they are walking across a street still filled with people dancing – although it is about four in the morning – he becomes braver and runs his thumb over the back of her hand before intertwining her fingers with his. Although he pretends not to look at her, he watches her from the corners of his eyes.

Luckily she doesn’t say anything about it. She just allows the touch, and they keep on chatting about things they have never told someone because no one would listen. She explains to him why she always wants to keep control over everything, and in the same sentence she says that she prefers driving a car to flying and that she hates the scent of flowery perfumes.

He doesn’t let go of her hand for the rest of the night, and sometime he stretches out his hand to brush her hair behind her ear when it falls into her eyes but she is too lost in what she says for her to notice. A small part of Klaus wants to believe that she actually likes it when he touches her.

When she insists that she has to take the next flight back to Mystic Falls because she has to arrange a prom or something like that – not that Klaus wouldn’t always listen to everything she says, but he got too distracted by the way the moonlight shone upon her hair and made it look like soft, gold silk – he can’t say he is too surprised, and he is not sure what he had actually expected of her.

That she would rush to New Orleans to spend a night in his bed?

Or maybe that she would stay with him for a little longer?

He waves when she glances behind while she climbs up the stairs to the gate and tries not to imagine how foolish he must look right now. She catches his eye in the crowd and even from this distance he can see the soft, almost shy smile before she waves back. Klaus sees that she wants to say something but can’t because she is too far away. Without breaking eye contact, he pulls out his phone and dials her number. Caroline frowns when she hears the phone ring in her pocket, but she pulls it out and accepts the call with a light shake of her head, still looking at Klaus.

“What do you want?”

“I thought you looked like you wanted to say something.”

She still watches him, though all people around her start muttering about how she is blocking the way. “Thank you. For tonight. And…”

He knows what she wants to say but can’t say because she’s still too furious about this whole Tyler business. _Thank you for everything_. She can’t say it because it’s too much for both of them, because both of them know it would be false to say it when she is too far away for him to touch her, when it is just not true. Klaus hopes that one day all the cruel things he has done to here won’t matter anymore.

“You’re always welcome, love.”

“Alright” she says, uncomfortably clearing her throat. She still hasn’t got used to him calling her love. Or maybe she has noticed it means something different to both of them now.

“See you soon?” Her voice trembles only a little; he notices it. He can’t believe that she would actually like to see him again after all he has done to her.

“Of course.”

She cuts the line without saying goodbye again, but this time it’s alright. This time there’s nothing left to say.


End file.
